


The Recognition of Pain

by everythingmurky



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Angst, Gen, Introspection, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 03:28:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9365984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingmurky/pseuds/everythingmurky
Summary: Hardy is more human than they realize.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm actually ashamed of how long it took me to find Broadchurch, as much as I love David Tennant on Doctor Who and mysteries. It probably owes in part to how I don't live in the UK, but it's not just that.
> 
> I watched Broadchurch in one go, watched it again, watched Gracepoint, and then started over on Broadchurch again. I had to write something. I started something original, and then I circled back to this, thanks to Eve Myles being on season two and this quote I used long ago for a Torchwood fic. It seemed fitting.
> 
> Standard disclaimers apply, as well as the one that says I can only claim partial British descent, so not going to have all the language/idioms/terms right, but I did my best and this is short anyhow. If I get brave/crazy enough to post the longer fic I started, I think it would show more.

* * *

_“The recognition of pain and fear in others give rise in us to pity, and in our pity is our humanity, our redemption.” —Dean Koontz_

* * *

He was heartless, they said, and that was the ironic part of it, that a man with all his heart problems was said not to have one at all. He would laugh at it if he had the strength. He didn't.

He hated himself for failing the Gillespies, for Pippa and Lisa. Her mother wasn't ever the same, no mother was.

That was the reality of Beth Latimer. Of the whole Latimer family.

He'd refused to fail them as well.

He hadn't, but what he'd found had broken someone else. He'd known that whatever he found after he discovered that email address would destroy Miller, and he hadn't wanted to do it. Weakness, he supposed, but then he hadn't wanted to cause her the pain, the anguish that would follow the truth. Was it better to let Danny's killer go free?

Of course it bloody well was not.

Still, when it first came time to tell Miller, he'd backed out of it. He could have said something at the beach, but instead, he'd said she did good work, all the while knowing that he was about to confront someone she loved.

And he'd found his killer. 

He'd done what he could, afterward, to ease the fallout for Miller, arranging the hotel room and giving the speech to her coworkers. He didn't think for a minute it would make any difference. She was tainted now, and nothing would be the same for her.

For anyone in town.

There would be no peace, not even after knowing who had done it. Even the why, properly explained—and this wasn't—wasn't enough.

They were all ruined, him along with the rest of them.

He might have it easier, though. His heart could fail at any time, and that would be the end of it.

The rest of Broadchurch... they weren't so lucky.


End file.
